Old, New, Borrowed, Blue
by Ace of Gallifrey
Summary: The universe isn't quite done granting Amy Pond's wishes yet... but this one isn't for her. It's for him, because he's saved the universe, and this is all Amy can give him to say thanks. AU end to The Big Bang.


**Title-** Old, New, Borrowed, Blue**  
Characters/Pairings-** 11/IV, Amy/Rory**  
Rating-** T**  
Summary-** The universe isn't quite done granting Amy Pond's wishes yet... but this one isn't for her. AU end to The Big Bang.

**A/N-** This is weird, and a little bit vague, which I'm not keen on, but I wasn't going to get any sleep until I wrote it, and it seems a shame to write without posting, so... :/

Anyway, given the timey-wimeyness of TBB, I thought I could get away with it. Reality in a state of flux, and all that. Things can slip through the cracks...

* * *

_"The stars in the sky illuminate below,  
The light is a sign that love will guide you home.  
The stars in the sky illuminate below,  
If the world were to die, the light would guide you."  
__-Angels & Airwaves _

* * *

**I.**

"What is it?"

The whispers spread across the hall, every one of her one hundred and three carefully chosen guests staring in wonder as a light appears at the center of the dance floor, returning from that place beyond memory from which she has called it. All the world is flooding through her mind, and she can feel the world as it was, and as it will be. With and without the Doctor. But there, in the world without, is something so familiar...

She calls out and, not knowing that what she is doing ought to be impossible, she _tweaks_. She reaches into the world Without and makes just the tiniest bridge, bringing just one thing across, because he is her Doctor, and he should be happy, too.

"Amy, what is it?" her husband asks, echoing the voices of the others as the ancient, brand new, stolen, blue box begins to materialize.

She lets out a tiny, triumphant laugh. "Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue." Her voice cracks on tears of joy.

And there it is, and there he is, and the world is just as it ought to be. Only now it's better.

**II.**

The Doctor stays until it starts to get dark; Amy notices him watching her slow-dancing with Rory out of the corner of her eye, and sees the melancholy on his face. Shortly thereafter, he disappears. She follows quickly, and finds him just in time to see River disappearing.

"You can't leave yet, Doctor!" she says forcefully. No way is she letting him out of her sight until she knows it worked!

He raises an eyebrow. "Who said anything about leaving?"

"You, sneaking away in the night like this? The party's only just starting, Doctor, we've hours left before I'll have anyone go!"

He hesitates. She knows he wants to stay, to be with his friends, but for some reason, he just won't.

Before he can make up his mind, though, it happens. A familiar sound, like the wind flying through the trees on a storm day, wheezing into existence, echoes through the dark street. A bush that wasn't there before shakes and suddenly, out steps a petite little woman. The woman Amy has been waiting on. The woman from the Doctor's past, but from Before, when the Doctor was just a dream and Gallifrey still sat in the heavens, someone fresh and brand new who has never properly met him before, borrowed from a time that doesn't properly exist now, and with the brightest blue eyes Amy has ever seen.

She is dressed in white, and that is probably appropriate. Her dark curls tumble about her shoulders, and her huge sapphire eyes blink rapidly in disorientation. She stands on the frost-covered lawn in her silver shoes and the starlight falls on her and she looks like a confused angel.

The Doctor's eyes are riveted on her, and he doesn't speak a word except to murmur, "It can't be." That is how Amy knows she did the right thing; the Doctor doesn't fall silent for anything.

"Happy birthday," she says archly. His dark eyes snap to her, and she smiles gently. "I remembered her from those pictures you showed me. During the reset, I just..." She shrugs. She doesn't really know how to explain, so she doesn't. "Go on. Go say hello."

The Time Lady on the lawn is staring at them. The Doctor hesitates for a minute, so she gives him a push and turns to go inside.

**III.**

He approaches slowly. Here she is, like a miracle, the woman who has been his guiding star for the past three hundred years, staring at him under the most impossible circumstances.

When they are standing just a few feet apart, she holds up a hand and he stops moving instantly. "I remember you," she says quietly. "As if from a dream."

"You're from after the reset but before Amy brought me back, aren't you?" he asks.

She nods. "I felt... it's all so strange. I don't understand. There are two worlds in my head. In one, worked in the Bureau of Ancient Records and was elected to the Council. Ordinary. Pretty standard for one of Lord Braxiatel's protegés. In the other, I was snatched away on mad, wonderful adventures with you. A previous you. And Gallifrey fell."

"That one is reality, I'm afraid," he says, and those blue eyes that seem to take up most of her face grow a little brighter as she feels that emptiness. He reaches out hesitantly with his mind and meets her halfway, and could weep for joy at having that space in the back of his mind full of Time Lord again- and it's better because it is _her_. She is full of fire and ice in equal parts and her mind glows like the star he has always likened her to. As their minds entwine- at long last for him, for the first time for her- the familiarity flares up inside her and those dreamlike memories of a life she has not truly lived come crashing through. It will never be as real for her as it was for him, but he doesn't mind, because he isn't alone anymore. He has all the time in the universe to wait for her to learn to love him again.

He has never been a great judge of beauty, but standing here, looking at her in the November moonlight, with the world glittering with frost all around them, he thinks he cannot have seen anything as beautiful as she before in his life.

"Come inside," he says, gesturing to the reception hall.

Romanadvoratrelundar takes his hand, and follows him.

**IV.**

It's amazing, Amy thinks. She and Rory have opted out of dancing for awhile, choosing instead to watch their friends and family enjoy themselves. Amy settles back against her new husband's chest, her head on his shoulder, and marvels.

There is the Doctor, shooting glances at the beauty from the universe without him who is standing next to him. When his eyes are turned away, hers are fixed on him, and when she glances across the room, he's gazing at her as if she is the most precious thing in the universe. Maybe she is. It's so very obvious to her that the pair are trying very hard to avoid looking like they're staring...

The last two of their kind, and she can't help but feel pleased that she has saved them both.

She smiles indulgently in their direction as the Doctor clears his throat, rubs his palms together nervously, then taps Romana on the shoulder a little hesitantly. She can't quite hear what he says to her, but judging from the fact that they move out onto the dance floor, she thinks she can guess.

**V.**

"It's all so familiar, but i-it's all like memories from a dream," she whispers again as she unconsciously leans closer to him while they sway.

He revels in her touch and nods. "We danced like this before, on Pelatinus 3," he tells her.

"I don't-"

"It's alright that you don't remember," he assures her. "You're here, and that is what matters." Unthinking, he accents the word 'that' with a little tap to her nose. It's such a familiar gesture, both because this particular regeneration is fond of it and used to using it on Amy, and because it's one he used on her a million years ago, when she was blonde and soft and a little bit silly.

Those new blue eyes widen for a moment, and then her lips find his, just ever so briefly.

He returns the kiss, soft and gentle and only a moment, and he stretches it out in his mind, his sense of Time sending the seconds spinning into eternity, because he knows this is the last... at least for awhile. At least until she has time to get used to him again. To meet him all over again. But for now, for some unknown reason, she has been prompted to give him this promise of a future to come.

He decides he is going to have to think of somewhere _really_ nice to take the newlywed Ponds as a thank-you.


End file.
